Not since the Raman Raghav murders in the late 60s when a psychopath bludgeoned several hutment dwellers to death, has Bombay witnessed such panic.

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Coomi Kapoor

July 15, 2013

ISSUE DATE: September 30, 1983

UPDATED: June 23, 2014 15:35 IST

Survivor Chandu Jadav: Rising panic

Not since the Raman Raghav murders in the late 60s when a psychopath bludgeoned several hutment dwellers to death, has Bombay witnessed such panic.

A mysterious maniac attacked 10 pavement dwellers in less than three weeks, hitting them on the head with large stones or boulders. Five of the victims are dead, and the others have been badly injured.

The killer struck so stealthily that none of the people sleeping in the vicinity heard anything, nor could the dazed survivors provide a description of the assailant. All the 10 attacks took place between 3 and 5a.m., on a 5-km stretch on the city's main artery of B. Ambedkar Road, between Sion and Parel. After each attack, the killer has been moving steadily northwards.

Caught by total surprise Bombay's worried Police Commissioner, Julio Ribeiro, explained: "We are still in the dark and have no clues as to the killer's identity or to his description." No fingerprints were left on the rough surfaced stones retrieved by the police but the absence of clues has not deterred Bombay's four dailies, all of which have turned themselves into amateur detectives and with an eye on circulation, each is keen to outdo the others.

"He is a dark long haired killer," screamed the banner headline in the Indian Express and the accompanying report described the maniac's blood shot eyes and piercing look. "The killer is gay and cannot face it," insisted the FreePress Journal.

The tabloid Daily announced that its team of reporters would accompany the police patrols but drew a blank. The daily even stopped its press at 2 a.m. last fortnight to announce that the killer had struck in faraway Trombay.

The next day, however, the newspaper acknowledged that it was a false alarm, and promptly blamed the police for misrepresenting a drunken brawl. Even the staid Times of India unbent sufficiently to proclaim that the killer had a sweet tooth, on the grounds that a dairy owner had claimed that the maniac had demanded some rasgoolas from him.

In fact, since September 1, when five persons were attacked on the same night, the killer has been lying low. City psychiatrists who have been consulted by both the police and the press feel that the killer is inactive at the moment because of the public awareness and the heavy police patrolling around Ambedkar Road.

The killer, explains Ribeiro, is a paranoid schizophrenic, an extremely clever 'Jekyll and Hyde' type of personality in whom the instinct for survival is very strong. Unlike a psychopath such as Raman Raghav, now languishing in jail, this killer is believed to plan out his moves carefully and does not act on pure impulse. Psychiatrists, however, feel that the murderer is bound to visit the scene of his crime and strike when he feels the path is clear.

Of the boulders found near the corpses, one weighed 30 kg, and had no blood stains on it, giving rise to the theory that the killings were ritualistic offerings to a deity, which is represented by the stones themselves. However, the police surgeon is now almost certain that the stones were the implements used to crack the victim's skull. The size of the stones indicates that the killer is well built.

On September 5, the newspapers claimed that a breakthrough had been made and the killer sighted. They referred to an incident on the Andheri-Kurla Road when a madman was chased away after he started throwing pebbles at pavement dwellers in the early hours of the morning. It turned out to be a false alarm.

Meanwhile, another kite being flown is that the killer has homosexual tendencies. This assumption seems based on the fact that all the victims have been males. The grapevine in homosexual circles for several months has been buzzing with rumours that there is a homosexual ripper on the prowl.

In fact, most of those who sleep on the Ambedkar Road's pavements are males, like hotel boys, labourers or vagrants - the women preferring the more sheltered areas of the pavement. At any rate, the coroner's report does not show that the victims were sexually assaulted before being killed. But that does nothing to stop the wild speculation.

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